was from ten to twelve shillings per week. And this is their pay for that labour; and yet the masters are not to be blamed, that I can learn, for they are forced by competition to this state of things, and by the unnatural, artificial state of society. If they did not do this their workmen must be out of employ, and ten times worse off, if that were possible, than they are now. In the State of Pennsylvania, in America, where the railroads run through coal and iron mines both, they leave them untouched, and come to England for iron to make the rails of, that they cannot afford to make at home, because of higher wages, and an outlet to society, which prevents them from being coerced into bondage. If the world was right, the labour would be done there, and not here, and the labour of carriage saved.

The situation of the peasantry and workmen in France, Germany, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and in fact I may say of Europe generally, is worse even than that of the same class in England; and wherever we turn our attention, we see nothing but poverty, distress, misery, and confusion; for if men do not copy after the good and virtuous, they generally do after the evil. When nations and rulers set the pattern, they generally find plenty to follow their example; hence covetousness, fraud, rapine, bloodshed, and murder, prevail to an alarming extent. If a nation is covetous, an individual thinks he may be also; if a nation commits a fraud, it sanctions his acts in a small way; and if a nation engages in wholesale robbery, an individual does not see the impropriety of doing it in retail; if a strong nation oppresses a weak one, he does not see why he may not have the same privilege; corruption follows corruption, and fraud treads on the heels of fraud, and all those noble, honourable, virtuous, principles that ought to govern men are lost sight of, and chicanery and deception ride rampant through the world. The welfare, happiness, exaltation, and glory of man, are sacrificed at the shrine of ambition, pride, covetousness and lasciviousness. By these means nations are overthrown, kingdoms destroyed, communities broken up, families rendered miserable, and individuals ruined. I might enter into a detail of the crimes, abominations, lusts, and corruptions that exist in many of our large cities, but I shall leave this subject, and conclude with the remarks of the prophet Isaiah, who gazed in prophetic vision on this scene: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof... The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate." Isaiah xxiv. 1, 5 and 6.

Iniquity of every description goes hand in hand; vice, in all its sickening and disgusting forms, revels in the palace, in the city, in the cottage; depravity, corruption, debauchery, and abominations abound, and man, that once stood proudly erect in the image of his Maker, pure, virtuous, holy, and noble, is vitiated, weak, immoral, and degraded; and the earth, which was once a garden, not only brings forth briars and thorns, but is actually "defiled under the inhabitants thereof."

Those great national evils of which I have spoken are things which at present seem to be out of the reach of human agency, legislation, or control. They are diseases that have been generating for centuries; that have entered into the vitals of all institutions, religious and political; that have prostrated the powers and energies of all bodies politic, and left the world to groan under them, for they are evils that exist in church and state, at home and abroad; among Jew and Gentile, Christian, Pagan, and Mahomedan; king, prince, courtier, and peasant; like the deadly simoon, they have paralyzed the energies, broken the spirits, damped the enterprize, corrupted the morals, and crushed the hopes of the world.

Thousands of men would desire to do good, if they only knew how; but they see not the foundation and extent of the evil, and long-established opinions, customs and doctrines, blind their eyes, and damp their energies. And if a few should see the evil, and try a remedy, what are a few in opposition to the views, power, influence, and corruption of the world?

No power on this side of heaven can correct the evil. It is a world that is degenerated, and it requires a God to put it right.

I purpose in this Chapter to shew the incompetency of the means made use of by man for the accomplishment of the purposes of God—the establishment of His Kingdom, or Millennial reign.

Now, if it is the kingdom of God, that is to be established, it must be introduced by God. He must not only be the originator of it, but the controller also, and any means short of these must fail of the object designed.

The great evils that now exist in the world are the consequences of man's departure from God. This has introduced this degeneracy and imbecility, and nothing but a retracing of his steps, and a return to God can bring about a restitution.

God gave to man a moral agency, as head of the world, under himself. Man has usurped the sole authority, and taken upon himself to reign and rule without God. The natural consequence is, that we have inherited all the evils of which I have spoken, and nothing but the wisdom, goodness, power, and compassion of God, can deliver us therefrom, restore the earth to its pristine excellence, and put man again in possession of those blessings which he has forfeited by his transgression. Emperors, kings, princes, potentates, statesmen, philosophers, and churches, have tried for ages to bring this state of things about; but they have all signally failed, not having derived their wisdom from the proper source. And all human means made use of at the present time to ameliorate the condition of the world must fail, as all human means have always done.

There are some who suppose that the influence of Christianity, as it is now preached and administered, will bring about a Millennial reign of peace. We will briefly examine the subject.

First, we will take the Greek and Catholic Churches as they have existed for ages—without an examination of their doctrines, whether right or wrong—for they form two of the largest branches of the Christian Church. They have, more or less, governed a great portion of Europe at different times; and what is the situation of the people and nations where they have held sway? We have noticed the effects, and already briefly touched upon the evils that prevail in those countries; and if Greece and Russia, or any other country where the Greek Church has held sway, be a fair specimen of the influence of that church, we have very little prospect, if that religion were more widely diffused or extended, that the results would be more beneficial, for if it has failed in a few nations to ameliorate their condition, it would necessarily fail to benefit the earth if extended over it. Nor do we turn with any better prospect to the Catholic religion. Of what benefit has it been to nations where it has prevailed the most? Has there been less war, less animosity, less butchery, less evil of any kind under its empire? It cannot be said that it has been crippled in its progress or its operations. It has held full sway in Spain, Rome, and a great portion of Italy, in France and Mexico for generations, not to mention many smaller states. Has it augmented the happiness of those nations of the world? I need not here refer to the history of the Waldenses, and Albigenses, and Huguenots, to that of the Crusades, wherein so many Christian kings engaged; nor to the unhappy differences, the wars and commotions, the bloodshed and carnage, that have existed among these people, for their history is well known. And the